Visual Basic Disk/Drive API Routines
GetDiskFreeSpace: Free Disk Space on Windows 95 (or Small Partitions)
     
Posted:   Sunday January 26, 1997
Updated:   Monday December 26, 2011
     
Applies to:   VB4-32, VB5, VB6
Developed with:   VB4-32, Windows 95
OS restrictions:   None
Author:   VBnet - Randy Birch
     

Related:  

GetDiskFreeSpaceEx: Free Disk Space on a Fat32 or NTFS Drive
       
 Prerequisites
Disk partitions < 2 gig.

The routine presented here to determine a drive's available disk space will return incorrect results on volumes over 2 gigabytes, as supported by the FAT32 partitions implemented in Windows95 OEM Service Pack 2, Windows 98 (without FAT32 conversion) and NT4. See the comments section following the code for additional information.
 BAS Module Code
Place the following API declare code into the general declarations area of a bas module. If this is a one-form project, the declares below could be placed into the general declaration section of the form instead, with all Public references changed to Private.

Option Explicit
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
' Copyright ©1996-2011 VBnet/Randy Birch, All Rights Reserved.
' Some pages may also contain other copyrights by the author.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
' Distribution: You can freely use this code in your own
'               applications, but you may not reproduce 
'               or publish this code on any web site,
'               online service, or distribute as source 
'               on any media without express permission.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Public Type VBNET_DRIVE_INFO
  DrvSectors              As Long
  DrvBytesPerSector       As Long
  DrvFreeClusters         As Long
  DrvTotalClusters        As Long
  DrvSpaceFree            As Long
  DrvSpaceUsed            As Long
  DrvSpaceTotal           As Long
End Type
        
Public Declare Function GetDiskFreeSpace Lib "kernel32" _
     Alias "GetDiskFreeSpaceA" _
    (ByVal lpRootPathName As String, _
     lpSectorsPerCluster As Long, _
     lpBytesPerSector As Long, _
     lpNumberOfFreeClusters As Long, _
     lpTotalNumberOfClusters As Long) As Long

Public Declare Function GetLogicalDriveStrings Lib "kernel32" _
     Alias "GetLogicalDriveStringsA" _
    (ByVal nBufferLength As Long, _
     ByVal lpBuffer As String) As Long
 Form Code
To a project form add 2 command buttons (Command1 and Command2), and a combo box (Combo1) as indicated in the illustration. Add the following to the form:

Option Explicit

Private Sub Form_Load()

   Me.Move (Screen.Width - Me.Width) \ 2, (Screen.Height - Me.Height) \ 2
   LoadAvailableDrives Combo1
   Combo1.ListIndex = 1
  
End Sub


Private Sub Command2_Click()
   
   Unload Me
   
End Sub


Private Sub Command1_Click()

  'Calls other functions to provide the info.
  'Data is stored in my own user-defined type.  
   Dim VDI As VBNET_DRIVE_INFO
   Dim r As Long
   Dim RootPathName As String

  'get the drive to find   
   RootPathName = Combo1.List(Combo1.ListIndex)

  'get the drive's disk parameters   
   Call rgbGetDiskFreeSpaceRDI(RootPathName, VDI)

  'show the results  
   Cls
   Print
   Print "  Drive Statistics for  ", ":  "; UCase$(RootPathName$)
   Print
   Print "  No of Sectors", ":  "; VDI.DrvSectors
   Print "  Bytes per sector", ":  "; VDI.DrvBytesPerSector
   Print "  Clusters Free", ":  "; VDI.DrvFreeClusters
   Print "  Total Clusters", ":  "; VDI.DrvTotalClusters
   Print "  Drive Space Used", ":  "; Format$(VDI.DrvSpaceUsed, "###,###,###,##0") & " bytes"
   Print "  Drive Space Free", ":  "; Format$(VDI.DrvSpaceFree, "###,###,###,##0") & " bytes"
   Print "  Total Drive Size", ":  "; Format$(VDI.DrvSpaceTotal, "###,###,###,##0") & " bytes"

End Sub


Private Sub LoadAvailableDrives(cmbo As ComboBox)

  Dim lpBuffer As String

 'get list of available drives
  lpBuffer = GetDriveString()

 'Separate the drive strings
 'and add to the combo. StripNulls
 'will continually shorten the
 'string. Loop until a single
 'remaining terminating null is
 'encountered.
  Do Until lpBuffer = Chr(0)
  
   'strip off one drive item
   'and add to the combo
    cmbo.AddItem StripNulls(lpBuffer)
    
  Loop
  
End Sub


Private Function GetDriveString() As String

  'returns string of available
  'drives each separated by a null
   Dim sBuffer As String
   
  'possible 26 drives, three characters each, plus trailing null
   sBuffer = Space$(26 * 4)
  
  If GetLogicalDriveStrings(Len(sBuffer), sBuffer) Then

     'do not trim off trailing null!
      GetDriveString = Trim$(sBuffer)
      
   End If

End Function


Private Function StripNulls(startstr As String) As String

 'Take a string separated by chr$(0)
 'and split off 1 item, shortening the
 'string so next item is ready for removal.
  Dim pos As Long

  pos = InStr(startstr$, Chr$(0))
  
  If pos Then
      
      StripNulls = Mid$(startstr, 1, pos - 1)
      startstr = Mid$(startstr, pos + 1, Len(startstr))
      Exit Function
    
  End If

End Function


Private Function rgbGetDiskFreeSpaceRDI(RootPathName, _
                                        VDI As VBNET_DRIVE_INFO) As Long

  'returns data about the selected drive.
  'Passed is the RootPathName; the other
  'variables are filled in here. 
   Dim r As Long
  
   r = GetDiskFreeSpace(RootPathName, VDI.DrvSectors, _
                        VDI.DrvBytesPerSector, _
                        VDI.DrvFreeClusters, _
                        VDI.DrvTotalClusters)
   
   VDI.DrvSpaceTotal = (VDI.DrvSectors * VDI.DrvBytesPerSector * VDI.DrvTotalClusters)
   VDI.DrvSpaceFree = (VDI.DrvSectors * VDI.DrvBytesPerSector * VDI.DrvFreeClusters)
   VDI.DrvSpaceUsed = VDI.DrvSpaceTotal - VDI.DrvSpaceFree
  
   rgbGetDiskFreeSpaceRDI = r

End Function
 Comments
With the introduction of Windows95 OEM Service Pack 2 and Windows 98 with the Fat32 drive system, the GetDiskFreeSpace API can no longer be reliably used on all systems. This raises considerations for application developers where the application is destined for an unknown build of Win95.

The OEM Service Pack 2 version of Windows95, and Windows 98, provides among other enhancements, optional support for large drive FAT32 partitions with a cluster size of only 4k. The original release version of Windows95 supports only partitions or drives up to 2 gigabytes in size. Using the GetDiskFreeSpace code above on drives partitioned and formatted as FAT32 will return incorrect values when these partitions exceed 2 gigabytes. On these partitions/drives, the correct API to use is GetDiskFreeSpaceEx.

As an example, the illustration above shows my Drive C total space at 2.147 gig, the free space at 1.948 gig, and the used space at 198 meg. At the time that graphic was made, I was running the OEM Service Pack 2 version of Win95 with the FAT32 partitions (allowing single partitions on both of my 2.5 and 3.2 gig drives). The actual statistics for my C drive is 2.54 gig total space, with free space of 1.942 gig and used space of 538 meg. The illustration above shows different values because the GetDiskFreeSpace API was unable to correctly calculate the disk size. On a traditional FAT16 drive, the code method above would return the correct statistics.

To assure that the correct method is used to calculate the free space, Microsoft recommends obtaining the user's version of Windows using GetVersionEx prior to calling the free space API.


 
 

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